Agbossoumonde to join Eintracht Frankfurt

Germany appears to be the latest stop in Gale Agbossoumonde's quest for club stability.

The United States Under-20 centerback is set to join Eintracht Frankfurt in Germany's second division, the same club that currently employs U.S. international Ricardo Clark.

Agbossoumonde spent the first half of the year with Djurgardens IF in Sweden's top flight. He began his stint as a starter but ultimately was reduced to a reserve before the club opted not to exercise its option to purchase his contract outright this summer.

Agbossoumonde will be on loan at Frankfurt, which will have an option to buy his contract when the loan expires.

46 Responses to Agbossoumonde to join Eintracht Frankfurt

He has had an interesting journey in Europe. For so much talent, he struggles to establish himself at the club level. Hoping the best for him, but if he can’t make it in Frankfurt, he should come back to MLS.

I wonder if some folks are trying to get into the Germany system from other EU leagues…maybe hopping this makes for better connection to the new coach or maybe he can use his influence in some way to help when needed with club issues.

While I hate Traffic Sports and am happy to see them get bashed, they got him into a good position at Djurgardens, where Boss played terribly, making some of the same types of mistakes that got our U-20 team eliminated from World Cup qualifying. In addition he had maturity issues that got him benched. And of course the team started to win once they had a CB who wasn’t a complete disaster, so he was removed from their plans after they had started out quite high on him. The dude has a ten cent head right now (problems both on and off the field), and who knows if that will ever change. And Traffic Sports cannot be blamed for that, it’s all on Boss. He has TONS of potential, but as of now he is pretty much terrible.

Maybe a good position, but lack of stability, miles from home, in a teenager’s life may just effect the way he plays on the field… Just my opinion. It has to take it’s mental toll knowing what type of bs you’re going through.

Not necessarily saying he shouldn’t have siezed the opportunity, just saying it might not have been that easy for him.

Memo to US youth nationals: Establish yourself in MLS, then move abroad unless you plan on going through a European academy and progressing to the first team that way. You can’t go from the Chicago Sockers to first team at a major club.

This kid is one of the most awful US prospects I’ve seen in a long time. A perfect example of the piss poor US scouting system.

See a kid who is physically dominant and towers over his peers at age fifteen but has no real skill or no soccer brain. The rest of the world does scouting the opposite. They look for skill and brains first and the mold him into an athlete.

Where is the logic in that? He’s had opportunities with Braga and Djundargen and he’s been awful for both. Traffic has given him the opportunities but its him that blew it. How is it Traffic’s fault if he sucks?

“The rest of the world does scouting the opposite. They look for skill and brains first and the mold him into an athlete.”

I’m kinda with you on the Traffic is getting overly hated on kick but that statement is nonsensical to me. You can’t teach speed, strength, height. You can definitely craft skill and tactics (soccer brains) to a greater extent.

Soccer scouts all over the world get excited about great athletes. To say otherwise is crazy.

Mark, those fans are not as stupid as it might seem. Traffic owns rights to Boss, they pay his salary and rent him to the highest bidding team. Although they are interested in protecting their investment, player development is not their highest priority. Even so, Boss has plenty of raw talent and his upside is greater than of Ream, Gonzalez or Opara. He does not suck – just needs playing time. Braga, a team that is good at evaluating talent, gave him playing time and tried to buy his rights from Traffic. However, the deal fell apart with Braga and Traffic blaming each other. Traffic sent him Estoril, a Portuguese second division team, which Traffic owns to give him playing opportunities. However, Traffic did not register him in time (a big screw up) so he was unable to play in games. Certainly, this is a terrible situation for a young player who needs playing time plus even in practices the club would be focused on the players that they can field in the games. Just imagine how bad of a situation that is for a young developing player, particularly for his confidence, not being able to play in any games for a season and being neglected by the team’s technical staff in practices. Subsenquently, Traffic sent him to a mediocre Scandinavian team for eight games, where he had mixed performances (ranging from winning the man of the match as a starter and to being benched after arriving late to practice). Nobody is saying that Boss is not responsible for his performances, but Traffic bears significant amount of the blame.

Here’s the problem with your position: in the US, there isn’t any difference in terms of soccer skill/brains between the great athletes and the average ones. Even if there were, the athleticism is where we have an advantage over the rest of the world. If we followed your plan, we would get slaughtered by the more “stylish” teams you mentioned, whereas now we can at least compete. So, going forward, why not keep finding the athletes and focus on teaching them to play with a more nuanced style?

I completely agree with you that Traffic is a terrible organisation. But at the end of the day, it comes down to performance. If you perform that awful, that after 8 games a mediocre Swedish club drops you, then that tells me Boss’ ceiling is very low than someone like Perry Kitchen or George John. Those are the player we should be investing heavily in and developing.

What about his awful performances for the US U-20’s? Single handily cost the US a U-20 World Cup berth with his mistakes. Should we blame Traffic also?

“So, going forward, why not keep finding the athletes and focus on teaching them to play with a more nuanced style?” Do you really want to watch the USMNT play ugly soccer the rest of your life?

Short term: Yes, we should keep picking athletes if that’s our advantage. Long term: We CAN and WILL develop skilled players on par with Spain and Italy. Heck, Uruguay has THREE MILLION people and they can churn out world class players with skill. You’re telling me we’re not capable of that with 300 million?

Has anyone seen an update from SBI to confirm that this is the for the 2nd team? Not to bash, but I am a little disappointed at SBI if the update is true, as it would mark a BIG omission from the orig SBI post and one that prob should have been noted by SBI.

The poster was mostly wrong. But without Traffic, his career would almost undoubtedly have been better. He would have had regular playing time and the fee Traffic requires wouldn’t deter full transfers.
Gale has had opportunities with Djursgardens and in Portugal, but he hasn’t had chances to really develop. He’s on a constant try-out basis, always trying to impress a team. It’s true that he didn’t live up to initial expectations at Djursgardens, but his time in Portugal was spent mostly in training with Estoril Praia because he was locked out of the roster registrations.

Perry Kitchen had a share of blunders this year and struggled with physical play at the centerback position, but it does not mean that his ceiling is low. Mistakes happen, they are part of development process for young players. It well may be that Kitchen and Boss will be starting CBs for the US 5-6 years from now. As for the U20 performances, it is unfair to single out Boss. He did not single handedly cost the US a U20 World Cup berth. If the attacking players realized 1/3 of their chances, the score would have been 8-2 in US favor. And the first goal was not Boss’s fault. The player who scored was marked by two other players from the US and the goalkeeper had a big blunder attempting the clearance. The second goal was a result of Hernandez, No. 4, loosing his man, and if you watch the replay carefully, Boss leaves his man, chases Hernandez’s man down and both go down following the collision outside the box. The ball bounces to another Guatemalan player and he scores. It you want to blame someone for this goal, blame Hernandez for his poor positioning. As for getting cut by a team after 8 games, it is not a measure of the player’s future success. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school team. Shevchenko was cut from Dynamo Kiev academy after failing the dribbiling test before being “discovered” by the coaches of the same club a couple years later. It did not prevent these players from having very successful careers.

Not to mention that our CBs from the last World Cup were playing at UCLA, Clemson and UI-Chicago at his age for god sakes. I’m sure Mark was there at College to rip them and tell them they suck and would never have a career after every mistake they made as freshman/sophomores. Give me a break.

I know some of the national team coaches (at least if they keep their positions). Everyone of them went to great lengths to point out that the tension between selecting a great athlete and a player with skill is very real. The impression I get is that the great athletes can get by on that alone for so long that they neglect technique and they generally do not listen to coaches (who in the teenager’s minds don’t seem to understand how great these athletic teenagers really are). The coaches are generally as frustrated as all of us with the obsinance of teenagers. Everyone of those coaches attempt to put these athletic players in situations where they cannot succeed by athleticism alone. The hope is to get the players to recognize the need to work to improve their skills and their soccer brains.

Anyone who has ever tried to teach a teenager anything before he is ready knows the frustration.

I think the whole thing is a process not only for the individuals, but for teams, regions and nations. It will take time. Go watch a tape of the US ’94 W.C. team and compare it to today’s team. Eric Wynalda’s and Alexi’s play was just not as good, no matter what they think, but Eric could strike a ball very well. Lalas was just a passable thug who learned good positioning.